Posts

What do you see in this video that you can use for your own Active Self Protection? This man was assaulted from behind in what looks like a random attack, but it definitely shows us some important reminders as we seek to protect ourselves.

1. This video is all about situational awareness. You must know what is going on around you, and that means using your eyes as well as your ears. If you watch the original video, after awhile the man gets up and you can see that he has headphones in. If you have both headphones in, you’re much less aware. Always think about your awareness when you’re out in public!

2. It takes great emotional fitness to be able to weather the storm and stay in a mental place to protect yourself after you’ve been attacked. The best ways to build that emotional fitness are (1) being physically fit, and (2) sparring a lot on the training mat, taking some good licks, and staying in the fight. These experiences give you points of reference to be able to weather the storm and stay in the fight.

3. Random evil exists, and the first step to covering your ASP is recognizing that it does and then being willing to protect yourself from it. Make that decision for yourself today and start training to defend yourself.

4. We don’t have the context behind this. It might be random, in which case the main lesson is awareness. It might have been precipitated by a confrontation on a train car or the station, in which case there could be some more to say about being aware of threats before they become physical and de-escalating them. Without more story we just don’t know, but it’s safe to say that we should all be aware that conflicts escalate and so avoiding them is wise.

WARNING: GRAPHIC. An assassination doesn’t normally provide much opportunity for self-defense, but this one caught on camera still can teach us some significant Active Self Protection lessons and therefore gain some redemption from a senseless act.

Original video: http://get-asp.com/tc93 (WARNING: this site is very, very NSFW and filled with adult content…strongest warning possible)

1. As always, situational awareness is always your best friend. This is doubly true when your chosen profession is one that you can make enemies, such as an attorney. Had this man been in condition yellow he MIGHT have seen this client coming, and MIGHT have had a second or two to defend himself. There are no guarantees, of course, but he might have had a chance.

2. Spiritual fitness is important, ASPers. You don’t get to decide your day of death in advance very often, and being at peace with God before you meet Him is the ultimate in ASP. So please, make peace with your Maker while you have time.

3. As a bystander, you must get away from the Bystander Effect and ACT. These bystanders tried to somewhat take cover behind their tables and hide a little, but their efforts were ineffective at best. Thankfully for them the murderer meant them no harm and so they lived, but we cannot count on that one iota. When the shooting starts, have your ASP covered and take decisive action to protect yourself.

4. I don’t know that there is much that the victim could have done once the shooting starts, but if he was aware and if he had seen the man coming even with a second to prepare, he might have been able to go IN to the attacker rather than away and perhaps defended himself while only being shot once or not at all. It would have taken some significant emotional fitness for sure.

We see again and again that real-life Active Self Protection involves facing multiple attackers. So are you capable of protecting yourself? Train these principles on the mat to improve your skills and plan!

1. As a first point, we must reiterate that the best way to protect yourself from multiple attackers is to live a consistent lifestyle of avoidance, de-escalation, and escape. Your verbal judo must be strong, your willingness to avoid problems must be resolute, and your desire to escape potential danger must be honed. You win 100% of fights you don’t get into, and winning this kind of fight is difficult at best. Stay out if you possibly can!

2. If you can’t avoid the fight, then you need to begin the physical fight with attitude. All self-defense starts with attitude. The attitude that we always adopt is an attitude that we can and will stop the attackers from hurting us. (this is the core attitude we work from in Kenpo, taught to me by my teacher Lawrence Robinson and his teacher, Skip Hancock) Whether one or multiple attackers, we begin with the core truth that we have the right to protect ourselves from harm, and we will protect ourselves from harm.

3. The skill set necessary to protect yourself from multiple attackers is larger than the skill set necessary against a single attacker, which makes training important. You need to get on the mat and train! Skills necessary here include movement, multiple attacker engagement, awareness, and effective striking and manipulation of an attacker so that you can get them out of the fight quickly.

4. If you can, deal with one attacker at a time. Move so that you’re not in the middle and being swarmed, and take one down before quickly moving to the next. Use the principle of knocking the attackers “out of time” (or, in gun folk speak, disrupting their OODA loop) so that you can then transition to another attacker.

5. If you run, don’t just run away from the danger. Run TO something. Don’t simply run away. Run TO a place of better position where you can face fewer at once, or a higher spot to have an advantage, or to a doorway to go through to cause them to have to come one at a time. Run TO something.

6. This all requires good emotional fitness. Emotional fitness is the ability to internally present a situation to yourself such that you are powerful to successfully overcome it. To beat multiple attackers you must have strong emotional fitness!

Intro

WARNING: GRAPHIC. Are you prepared for a real knife attack? Not a Hollywood scene, but a real life, honest-to-goodness knife attack? An awful lot of training I see out there is directed towards single attacks and telegraphed movement, but Active Self Protection exists to realities of attacks so that we can learn how to defend ourselves from what really happens.

Video

Video Download

Guest Message

Video Lessons

How do I protect myself against a knife?

It takes great emotional fitness to really survive a knife attack when you’re unarmed. Emotional fitness, the ability to present a situation to ourselves so as to strengthen our inner self to face and overcome the situation, can be trained and must be maximized. It is scary stuff to fight against a knife-wielding attacker, but doing it in training again and again can give us confidence and inner strength to do so successfully. So hit the mat!

Recognize that real-life knife attacks are fast, brutal, repeated, and not telegraphed. I see a lot of “knife techniques” in martial arts and combative schools taught against a single thrust with the assumption that the defender will stop the attack and disarm the attacker on the first strike, but that is not really realistic in my opinion unless you’re a master who gets really lucky as well. The best you can probably hope for in real life is to deflect the first attack and buy a brief moment to weather the ambush and regain composure for the second strike that is coming immediately.

The Five Ds are the larger general principle to work on when facing an armed opponent, and this holds true for knife attacks again and again. Deflect, Dominate, Distract, Disarm, Disable. If you practice them as principles to prioritize in self-defense they will certainly help you in a real fight.

Empty-handed skills are crucial in surviving a knife attack. I carry a firearm every day and recommend that you do, too, but there is no way that you will be able to immediately draw a firearm in this kind of attack. You must have empty-handed skills to weather the ambush to get to your gun!

Spiritual fitness is the foundational fitness and the foundation of covering your ASP. Several of these victims simply didn’t survive the ambush, and there is no guarantee any of us will either in a real ambush against a knife-wielding attacker. Make peace with God so that if today is your day to meet your Creator, you’re ready! And then train like you want that meeting to be a long ways down the road.